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NEVIS LEADERS OF THE WORLD CRICKET PLAYERS STAMP ISSUES AND VARIETIES

The Cricket Players Stamp Issues for Nevis Produced by the Format International Security Printers
A Study of the Varieties and Quantities Produced

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WARNING!!!

Dangerous fake reproductions of this issue appearing first in 2015 are on the market. Perforated and Imperforate forgeries are spreading!
Visit the linked page to define all of them and what to avoid.

The Nevis 1984 Cricket Players Forgeries.View my Page on how to Define the Nevis 1984 Cricket Players Stamp Forgeries here.
In 1984 Nevis joined other commonwealth countries in the production and issuance of the Leaders of the World (LOW) Cricket Players series of stamps. Nevis issued 2 sets of them in 1984. This page will try to clarify how many sets were issued and produced and what varieties were also produced. I will show examples of the varieties that exist including progressive color proofs, specimen overprinted varieties, imperforates and yes, made for collector errors and where possible, genuine errors.

There was a huge controversy on the legitimacy of the production and sale of the varieties which ended up in court trials against the owners of the Format International Security Printers Ltd. and associated companies, their owners and some employees. The trials proved that the companies and owners had the sole right to reprint, and produce the varieties at their discretion for promotional programs and such despite the objections of the Tuvalu Philatelic Agency and others. A large portion of the progressives and other varieties were seized as evidence for the trials by the British Metropolitan Police and held by the same until 2008 when they were finally released back to the original owners. We are lucky it survived! Representatives for Tuvalu went through the material and confiscated some for destruction but much was left and now these varieties are available to the collecting community to add to their topical and specialized collections. As for the material from St. Vincent, St. Lucia etc;, it was released back without tampering.

The valuation of the material has been grossly under valued because of the stigma produced by a few agencies, clubs and ex-employees and some dealers over the past 20+ years instilling in the collecting community the idea that there are "millions" out there hidden away in warehouses, attics etc. This is NOT the case and with the evidence I now have, we can now show this to be a huge exaggeration on the facts.

I will present each set as it was issued and show examples of some of the varieties. I will use existing documentation which shows the general practices used for ordering and printing of the varieties which shows the general consensus of quantities produced and if possible...what still exists. As (and if) more information and documents are discovered, it will be added to this study for reference to collectors.

Through evaluation of the documents I have in my possession and the common practices of the printer, all sets of Leader of the World issues fall under the same consensus of quantities produced. We know that some issues for Nevis were reprinted once. The standard was the same for all that 21,000 normal sets were reprinted for the Philatelic Distribution Corporation, (PDC). General invoices and documents show that original orders for many stamp sets outside the Leaders of the World Series and including the LOW series as well ranged from 15,000 to 25,000 sets for Nevis. At that time the PDC had a set allotment printed for resale via outside stamp selling entities. The allotment was generally 2/3 of the given original orders. The calculation of 21,000 for Saint Vincent appears over and over and is an easy quantity to break down for the allotment. 21,000 went to the Saint Vincent Philatelic Bureau and 14,000 went to the PDC's outlets. So I will base on the higher figure that a total of 75,000 sets were produced for Nevis.

There is a difference with Eastern Hemisphere countries as there was also an allotment of the regular issued stamps that was added to the issues sent to the PDC. These were called "GOOD OVERS" which was a supplemental stock or extra number of sheet runs (possibly to compensate for any errors) in the main run of reprints.

At the time of original printing some Progressive color Proofs and varieties were produced. These were usually in what I call 5-stage or 6-stage sets. The 5-stage sets include the yellow and black colors combined stage. The 6-stage sets have no all colors with no inscriptions stage. The 7-stage sets are the reprints for all the series up until late 1986 when the 7-stage sets became the norm. All presentation folders have the reprints. The reasons for the reprinting were that the earlier printings were from press sheets of which very few were saved. The reprinting was done to produce limited quantities of varieties for collectors to buy at affordable prices to enhance their collections. The majority of reprints come from cut panes. Storage of press sheets, which are very large, proved to be from the earlier versions not viable and so almost all the reprints were cut into panes for ease of storage.

The standard printing was set for all reprints.

3,000 sets of 7-stage progressive color proofs.
5,000 sets of imperforate stamps.
2,000 sets of specimen overprinted stamps

In most cases 1,000 sets of imperforate specimen overprinted stamps and 3,000 sets of misperfed or missing color "errors" were also produced. Of them, most now appear to have been destroyed.

Most all specimen overprinted stamps, imperforate stamps and errors were all printed at the time of reprinting as allowed by the "reprint agreement". Therefore all of them have finite numbers. With Tuvalu it was agreed to allow them to confiscate what they deemed as errors. Progressive color proofs are not errors but they confiscated and destroyed many of them before they could be saved. Most all imperforate specimen overprinted sets and quite a few imperforates and even some of the normal specimen overprinted sets were also taken. I do not know why they did not take all of them but theorize that because the evidence taken was so large, I am talking about many thousands of panes, that they just simply missed them. The evidence was just thrown into police evidence bags with no regard to the philatelic preservation what so ever! Thus sorting through the material was quite difficult.

LET'S GET STARTED!

1st Series Cricket Players issued October 23, 1984

For Nevis 1st series it appears no imperforates nor errors exist.

1984 Nevis Leaders of the World, Cricket Players (1st series) Stamps

75,000 sets of the normal perforated issues were produced.

1984 Nevis Leaders of the World, Cricket Players (1st series) SPECIMEN Overprinted Stamps

2,000 specimen overprinted sets produced according to general reprinting practices.

CROSS GUTTER BLOCK FROM THE UNCUT PRESS SHEETS 1984 Nevis Leaders of the World, Cricket Players (1st series) Crossgutter Block

The number of these that exist is around 4-5 so they are extreme rarities. Any gutter pairs or blocks will stand under the same status of extremely rare. No intact press sheets known to exist at this time.

An assortment of the color proofs has appeared on the market recently. I believe they are cut from the unique color proof press sheets that were found in the archive. The group imaged does not contain all the color proof stages. Some may have been lost or destroyed. It is possible the missing stage press sheets are in someone else's possession. The press sheets have been randomly auctioned off over the years. The imaged group matches what another collector associate showed me. His are all in pairs (two stamp pairs attached).
1984 Nevis Leaders of the World, Cricket Players (1st series) Stamp Color Proofs

At present there is no evidence that any other varieties exist for the 1st Cricket Players series.
It is possible that they were produced but at present no others are known on the market.
At this time, no errors are available on the market.

2nd Series Cricket Players issued November 20, 1984

For Nevis 2nd series it appears no imperforates, color proofs nor errors exist except for the 5c value. The status of this can change.

1984 Nevis Leaders of the World, Cricket Players (2nd series) Stamps

75,000 sets of normal perforated issues were produced.

1984 Nevis Leaders of the World, Cricket Players (2nd series) SPECIMEN Overprinted Stamps

2,000 specimen overprinted sets produced according to general reprinting practices. These seem not as commonly sold in this form as the 1st series.

1984 Nevis Leaders of the World, 5c Cricket Players (2nd series) Progressive Color Proof Stamps

3,000 sets of progressive color proofs produced according to general reprinting practices. The seven stage set for the 5c value is available on the market by one seller. The seller had and has access to quantities of Format material. It is possible the other values do exist in this form and are still in a dealers stock somewhere. Time will tell and it will change status if found.

CROSS GUTTER BLOCK FROM THE UNCUT PRESS SHEETS
1984 Nevis Leaders of the World, Cricket Players (2nd series) Crossgutter Block

The number of these that exist is around 4-5 so they are extreme rarities. Any gutter pairs or blocks will stand under the same status of extremely rare.

THE 1984 CRICKET PLAYERS 2ND SERIES PERFORATED UNCUT PRESS SHEET
1984 Nevis Leaders of the World, Cricket Players (2nd series) Uncut Press Sheet

I found this press sheet in one of the Bileski estate lots. It has a status of extremely rare to unique!

At present there is no evidence that any other varieties exist for the 2nd Cricket Players series.
It is possible that they were produced but at present no others are known on the market.
At this time, no errors are available on the market.

I stated on the introduction page that press sheets of the imperforates and progressive color proofs were sold in the 1995 final sale of the archive. Some were sold again in auction recently at a very low bid in consideration of the rarity. The status is unknown on them at present.

This concludes our study of the varieties produced for the Leaders of the World Cricket Players series issued by Nevis. I hope that this clarifies the point that the stigma that millions were made of each issue is completely false and should be ignored by collectors and dealers of these issues. Because of a few biased and exaggerated opinions and written articles on these issues of which they have no evidence to back their claims the LOW stamp issues and varieties have been under valued and shunned by many for years. Sometimes the "experts" are not such experts as they have not completed the research needed to verify their claims.

Your friend and fellow collector and researcher,
JLowe

References taken from:
Stanley Gibbons Leeward Islands
Scott Catalog
Inventory list for the Format Archive by Robson Lowe
Documents obtained from the trial exhibits
Actual materials from the police evidence used in the trials
Online research
Documents obtained from the printers files that still exist
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UPDATED LAST ON: 29-Jul-2017 11:13 AM